Xen Based Cloud VPS

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• Entry #1: Just The Beginning

  Fri, 23 Mar 2012:

  After tinkering around with my ubuntu home server for a while, I began thinking about getting a VPS with a dedicated IP. My Home server just used a free dyndns (I don't think you can add free dyndns sub-domain names to the free account anymore) account which, in cooperation with my router, kept my dynamic IP binded with the free sub-domain name.

  Now, anyone who has gotten any sort of webspace knows that there is almost no use in searching for "hosting". The market is flooded with good, bad and terrible hosts and it takes some probing to feel confident about the perfect (best bang for buck) hosting package. There are the main conglomerates (which are expensive) and the el' cheapo companies who are probably just subleasing out space they got from the big company. Just, do your research.

  I'm no ultra expert, so I wanted flexibility. I wanted a chance to play around and figure out if I made a mistake before I sign on to any sort of premium package.

  Basic Requirements:

        - Full Root Access with the ability to install anything I wanted.
        - High Availability and low latency; I want to be able to log in and work without lag or disconnects.
        - The flexibity to scale if needed (we all know our apps are going to be that successful, lol)

  I am still undecided if I want to use it as my personal everywhere linux cloud. Since most of my focus is web-app based, and backend programming and scripting, I wouldn't need any fancy GUIs. A browser will work just fine Otherwise, the kind of things I want to eventually do with my server is the following:

        - Using openVPN to vpn and see the staging sites though a browser.
        - Create commerical web-app solutions which can only by seen by my client.

  So maybe commercial and public apps, but then no personal projects. I will have to ensure secure practices before I put my valuables up in the cloud.

        - Explore differnces between cloud VPS and normal VPS.

  Lastly,

        - dig into scala, with play and/or lift.. apache tomcat... JVM
        - host my git repos
        - create jails to allow other users to sftp(ssh) or scp wihtou giving too much access
        - create restriced accounts for people I collab with
        - Host some web-based project management tools (I've tried project-pier, redmine, phpcollab, and more... [will be seen in a future topic]
        - and much more..

  Wait, theres one more, and the most important:

        - Uphold very tight security best practices. Sometimes things get going slower, but then I can sleep easy at night.

  So, a big wishlist...

  
  But for starters, to solve my basic requirements, I opted to get a cloud VPS. They are all the hype and I hope it will give me some exposure into that world. For high availability, you kind of have to beleive the reviews aboutthe company. For Low Latency, I need to get a server close to home.

  I'm in Hong Kong, so I narrowed my selection to a few which came up in my searches:

        - rackspace - rackspace.com.hk
        - Host Virtual - vr.org
        - VPS Hosting - vpshosting.com.hk

  I chose Host virtual because I liked how detailed they talked about their new data center in Hong Kong. They use Xen Virtuallization, which is something I wanted to, but never got around to testing out. And teh deciding factor is... Cancel anytime and package adjustment services. Being my first time, I am able to buy the minimal 256mb,10GB Disk, and 200GB transfer ram for ~$10USD. Unlmited ipv6 addresses (another topic I want to decifer), one ipv4 address and $2USD/ipv4 address. a control panel-like service with the 516mb ram package, and a plethera of other nice admin tools which will make the transiton into l33t linux sys admin easier.

  
  Afterwards, I got a Top Level Domain from namecheap.com which had a special on "whois guard" and ssl certificates... so I'm going to get to use that slick https stuff.

  Finally, I created an A record to use namecheaps DNS services and forward everything to my IP. I'm happy with my tld choice but i won;t disclose that just yet. Not until I feel its more secure.

  Securing my cloud vps is the next step... I will have my hands full for a while :)

  
  

• Entry #2: Fiddling with The Available Virtual Images

  Sat, 31 Mar 2012:

  There I was getting things started, when... It was just too tempting so...

  I deleted my ubuntu 10.04 64 bit PV image of my server and decided to take a gander at what else this Xen Based Cloud Hosting had to offer.

  
  FIrst of all, after my confirations to delete the virtual cloud server, I only had to wait seconds before I could deploy a new server. And now I could test any of their supports OSs.

  This had me thinking back to all the time I spent reinstalling different distros back when I was first giving linux a shot. Having a virtual host like this would of been real nice. However, none of the servers run guis... and I guess I could of achieved a similar thing had I used just plain old virtual machines.

  But, the way I can just pick and choose them, and have them deployed instantly (I can delete one, and deploy in less than a min) is quite convinient and efficient.

   

  Unfortunatley, it takes a while to test out different distros and learn the real diffreences behind them. From what I've seen they are all capable of dishing out the services you need them too but things get a little painfull to setup if they are not desined for your distro. I always feel a slight disapointment when software does not list my distro specifically in the installation instructions. Also, I often use "The Linux Administrators HandBook" for reference which I like how they explain the cases specific to each distro. For now, I'm most comfortable with Ubuntu.

  So, what I was really interested in Testing out within my cloud virtual server was teh large selection of turnkey linux distros. I think If I weren't so enthused about linux systems, then I'd just use a turnkey distro like the turnkey tomcat distro which would let me host java apps out of the box.  I still beleive, however, that there still can be traps for someone who is generally unfamiliar with linux systems when using turnkey linux (or any linux or that matter). I can imagine the case where they do something silly like forget to change the default pw (i've seen it happen for someone reputable liek EA games), or mess up some file restricitons and ACL's. So I hope those turnkey linux's have good documentation for things like these.

  I really think that if I had a client base large enough which wanted oen specific thing, then it would be so easy to just use those turnkey distros and not have to worry too much about it.

  On the other hand, as a custom solutions maker, I will stick with ubuntu and install and configure what I need and on my own. for now~